Dog poo painted pink in bid to guilt irresponsible dog owners

Irresponsible dog owners are being urged to clean up after their pets after 43 piles of faeces were found along a school route pathway in Wyberton.

Boston Borough Council’s environmental enforcement team highlighted every single pile of dog poo with highly-visible fluorescent pink chalk-based spray and also sprayed no dog fouling signs on the path and grass at intervals to reinforce the shaming message.

Farington councillors Paul Wharton and Mike Otter continue their campaign to highlight the problems of dog fouling in Leyland

This follows a similar trial in South Ribble last year which is still on going, where piles of dog mess were circled with yellow spray paint.

Coun Michael Brookes, Boston Borough Council’s portfolio holder for waste services and street cleansing, said: “It is depressing when we have to deal with incidents such as this.

This is a heavily-used path between Tytton Lane and Saundergate Lane alongside the A16, and parents use it to safely walk their children to and from Wyberton Primary School.

It is narrow and inevitably some children will have to walk on the grass alongside the path, especially if parents have other children in a pushchair.

“It is shocking to think that irresponsible dog owners have failed to clean up after their pets knowing full well that small children also use this path. Apart from the distasteful aspect of having to deal with children who have trodden in dog mess it also presents a serious health hazard – a real risk to eyesight damage, especially in children.”

The pink sprayed poo will be left for a few days to act as a guilty reminder to offending dog owners before a borough council team clean it all away.

Council grounds staff are sometimes sprayed with dog excrement when strimming and mowing where it has been left undetected.

Dwaine and Rebecca Dawson were pushing their three-year-old son Dante along the path in his pushchair when the environmental enforcement team arrived.

Dwaine said: “We use the path almost every day. It is really badly fouled near the sports field end. I have seen some dog owners cleaning up after their pets. It doesn’t seem to be a difficult thing to do.

“But I have also seen others walking on without cleaning up, even when children have been passing by. We have had to clean it off the buggy wheels and out of our shoes.

“I think the council is doing the right thing. But there are fresh deposits every day. It is a never-ending task.”